


vespers and breaths

by marijayne



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 19,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marijayne/pseuds/marijayne
Summary: It’s a long poem, and Zuko is nearly three fourths through it before the crowd shifts enough for Katara to see him again, his slightly rumpled jacket, the line of the matching vest that she knows is underneath, the shaggy dark hair grazing his left ear. When she finally seeks out his eyes, they are already locked on her, and her heart stutters in her chest.Katara knows this poem – of course she does – but it isn’t until his eyes flick momentarily to her lips that she realizes she has been whispering the words of the final stanza.+++In this modern AU, Zuko and Katara happen across each other after years apart. Both will tell you they weren't together before, but things might be different this time.So much fluff and angst
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 68
Kudos: 68





	1. ripples in water

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, it's been many years since I've written fiction and even longer since I've shared any of it, but I've had so much fun reading everyone's work here, I wanted to contribute. I'll be aiming for every other day posts until we're done, I'm guessing somewhere between 15 and 20 short-ish chapters. Thanks for coming along.

In hindsight, even stepping out of the car was a bad idea.  
But it wasn’t Katara’s car, didn’t belong to any of them. They had asked the driver to take them here and here they were. Katara’s chance for making a choice that didn’t lead her right here was many months before, and it is too late now.

It feels strange to be on campus again – spirits, how long had it been? Six years? Seven? The momentary disorientation of breathing this oxygen produced by these trees in the shadow of this building must show on Katara’s face.  
Suki elbows her in the ribs. “Been a while, huh?” she teases.  
“Have you missed it?” Ty Lee asks, before immediately launching into, “I’ve missed it! What do you miss most? I miss sleeping in a hammock out in the quad!” She waives towards the cluster of beech trees across a lawn where a single hammock swings lazily.  
Suki laughs. “Yes, I’ve really missed spending months at a time in the windowless lab. Acclimating to daylight has been such an unfortunate consequence of leaving academia.” They are walking vaguely towards the offending lab in question. The early autumn sun seems to catch the leaf litter aflame. Ty Lee is walking backwards now, her long braid swinging behind her, and looks at Katara expectantly. 

“I miss poetry,” Katara concedes. A half-truth, meant to throw them off the scent of something else.

As if on cue, a voice materializes between the lecture halls to their right. Katara freezes. She is aware now of how many people are pouring out of nearby buildings and mingling together in this square of asphalt, how they form and pause around the speaker like ripples in water. Even with a crowd forming Katara can see his maroon crushed velvet suit, hear his voice smooth and deep. People are stopping to listen to the recitation. It’s an arresting piece. Katara studies the bystanders. Some of them, the younger ones, are closing their eyes. She’s not looking at him, but that doesn’t prevent her from knowing that his own eyes flutter closed at opportune moments, his head cocking towards the smoggy sky, his arms making some grand gesture. His theatrics only draw more listeners – harried graduate students, nodding faculty. Who doesn’t enjoy a good poem recited for no clear reason in the middle of a passing period. Katara imagines all the places they might be headed, the happenstance that brought them all here. She glances at Ty Lee, who happens to be the happenstance that dragged her here, and is only half surprised that Ty Lee is enthralled too, as if he materialized out of nothing to give her the gift of these moments.

It’s a long poem, and he’s nearly three fourths through it before the crowd shifts enough for Katara to see him again, his slightly rumpled jacket, the line of the matching vest that she knows is underneath, the shaggy dark hair grazing his left ear. When she finally seeks out his eyes, they are already locked on her, and her heart stutters in her chest. 

Katara knows this poem – of course she does – but it isn’t until his eyes flick momentarily to her lips that she realizes she has been whispering the words of the final stanza.


	2. tedious choreography

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ll forget” Zuko had said, “I’ll call tomorrow.”  
> Katara did not forget.   
> Zuko did not call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's hoping I can keep up still.   
> also, the sense memory of old campus telephones really got me on this one.

Katara has been talking to Haru for more than half an hour now, waiting to settle the tab. It’s late. The bar is bright and loud in a way that is energizing now but is certain to unravel as soon as she steps outside. Katara glances behind her shoulder and Ty Lee waves enthusiastically, motioning towards Haru hopefully. Katara rolls her eyes in an exaggerated way that she hopes Ty Lee catches from across the room. Suki gives her a thumbs up anyway. It’s been too long since they have been all together like this.

Haru had been discussing the benefits of borrowing against a certain term annuity and Katara lost track of the finer points about two minutes ago. Nevertheless, she smiles reassuringly in his direction. She’s finally caught the bartender’s eye and begins the tedious choreography of settling up the girls’ tab.

Katara has only just finished with the bartender when Haru taps her on the shoulder, a small piece of green folded paper sticking up between his index and middle fingers.   
“You dropped this,” he yells. It’s impossible not to yell in here.  
She sees.   
She closes her eyes.

The last time Katara spoke to Zuko on the phone, she was in her office in the basement of the campus library. In her memory, everything about the moment was incredibly mundane. There were journals stacked in precarious piles all around her. She had been reading through marine biology articles looking for a particular citation when the office line rang. It was a common occurrence and she thought nothing of it. The tan receiver was a comforting weight and she nestled it against her shoulder to facilitate her continued perusal of The Journal of Marine Sciences.

“Five or six years ago…” Zuko began, his raspy cadence as if they were already in the middle of a conversation. They were always already in the middle of a conversation. 

Katara reached for a pencil and, not finding it on the desk, instinctively reached into her hair to pull out the tangled updo she had used the pencil for not ten minutes prior.   
Still skimming the Journal, Katara felt around on the counter until she found some scrap of paper to make a note on. It turned out to be half of a green flyer for an event at the student center. A coffee ring darkened the corner. Katara started scribbling. He had been describing the general contents of the article, eventually coming around to a detail concerning a particular fish that had been re-introduced to the Jang Hui River. The cover of the journal had been orange or maybe brown.

Katara glanced up from the marine biology journal, still not looking at the notes she was taking. A graduate student she vaguely recognized from the history department had stepped into the office and was looking uncomfortable by the door. Katara finished the last of the reminder on the blue scrap paper, glancing at it to make sure it was legible. Only the H of “Hui” had been written on the paper, the rest scrawled across the cover of last week’s Ba Sing Se Journal of Medicine. 

“Thanks,” Zuko had said, breathless through the phone, as if he was also in the middle of something else. “How long before you can find me a citation?” he added, an afterthought. She considered the meager information he’d given.  
“Tomorrow night,” Katara said with confidence. She’d found more in less time with far less to go on. 

“You’ll forget” Zuko had said, “I’ll call tomorrow.”  
Katara did not forget.   
Zuko did not call.

The paper is blank now. The toner from the flyer flaked off first, within the first few months. The pencil scribbles took longer. The water print from the office mug was the last to disappear. The paper was worn soft, a green blanket. Katara had carried it through airports and symposiums and grocery stores, purposefully at first and then for no real purpose other than it belonged.

Katara takes it from Haru, gingerly, and slides it back into her wallet between her drivers license and credit card, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. 

“Nice to meet you,” Katara tells him, slipping off the barstool and heading into the crowd, back to the girls to say goodnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	3. a ridiculous thing to say

The air outside is crisp but not yet cold. Tolerable weather for a walk. The hotel is not far, and even in the sprawling city,everything is close enough.Even so, Katara’s hands are shoved deep in her pockets when she feels her phone buzz. Reflexively she checks her scarf, then her wallet in the other coat pocket, wondering what might have been left behind to prompt the girls to summon her back.

But the message isn’t from Ty Lee or Suki. It’s from Zuko.

Before this afternoon it had been eight years since she’d heard Zuko’s voice. She’d heard from him, of course. Over the years, Katara had subscribed to many international messaging apps.Just in case. She’d been rewarded for her efforts with clustered messages a few times a year. Just enough for her to know that he was out there, and never enough for her to figure out where, exactly, out there he might be.With all the things they had shared, she often wished that they had come up with some kind of code. She regularly gave more detail than he did, her “come and find me” unspoken at the end of many strings of messages.

When Zuko hadn’t called by days end for his citation (which, by the way, Katara had located by mid-morning), Katara suspected. On the short walk to his apartment, she let herself wonder if he had given her the reference assignment only to create an appointment with her that he would purposefully miss. She knew he’d been on the run before, and it was not a secret between them that Zuko might have to leave unexpectedly again. Still, it had been nearly three years since he’d accepted the lecturer position at the Gaoling campus, and with every day that passed Katara had become more hopeful that those days were behind him. Katara had known she was prone to overthinking, and determined not to let herself get carried away without evidence.

Katara let herself into Zuko’s apartment and pulled the chain into place behind her. Next to the door was a dolly, already loaded with an archive box. And so she knew. Zuko was gone.

Zuko’s apartment was small and dark and always uncannily tidy. He had very few things and every thing he had belonged in a particular place.The apartment was a haven of order in a building that was literally falling apart. In the many hours she had spent there before, she had admired the purpose that each item held. But on that day, it had only seemed empty. Like he had never been there at all.

There were four archive boxes. Katara had organized them herself and knew where each one belonged: one in the corner cabinet in the kitchen, one under the turntable in the living room, one on the floor of his bedroom closet, one above the coats in the hallway. They were spread out not so much for stealth but more due to lack of space in the apartment. They were his personal archive: correspondence, bits of his writing, pages and pages of notes that might become something one day, the syllabi for his courses. It didn’t take long to round them up and pile them on the dolly. She found a fifth empty box in the coat closet and filled it carefully: the last of the tea blend and his uncle’s tea set from the kitchen, his mother’s vase from the living room, the cashmere scarf from the coat closet, the Clash records, the ceramic bowl from his dresser, filled with coins and whatever flotsam had been in his pockets, the latest notebook -just a few dozen pages filled. On her way out she picked up the key to her own apartment he kept on the table by the front door, and whispered a good bye.

When a month went by with no word from Zuko, she arranged to sublet the apartment. She delivered the archive boxes to the self-storage on the outskirts of town. She knew a lot more than she had told any one, but it wasn’t enough to make any difference.

Katara’s professional and, more often than not, personal delight was to uncover some obscure reference or tidbit, but she had never attempted to find him. Not really. It wasn’t that her professional penchant hadn’t been sought out for the task. It had. But she _knew_ Zuko didn’t want to be found. Even after years of absence Katara remained self-assured that she, of all people, would know, would be in the best position to guess his opinion on the matter. And yet. Here he had been. In the middle of campus right here in the middle the Earth Kingdom, in the middle of the goddamned day. Maybe Katara had been wrong not to try harder. Not to try at all, really.

Zuko’s sudden appearance had meant nothing to Ty Lee and little more to Suki, and if they’d recognized him they’d played it off for her benefit. They’d dragged Katara away while a small group of eager students stepped closer to Zuko, severing her eye contact with him. Katara had so many questions.

She steps out of the steady flow of foot traffic and opens the app to see his message.

_You remember._

What a ridiculous thing to say. She begins to type a response:

 ~~Of course I re.~~

~~We practically wrote that piece to~~

~~I was there when you~~

Katara is blessedly saved from having to send anything.

_You’re still up_

_Meet me for coffee_

It’s a question, probably, but Zuko is already in the middle of a conversation. She takes a deep breath. This response is easy to formulate:

_Be there in 10._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading. stay safe out there.


	4. chance one mistake

When Zuko says coffee what he means is tea. And when he wants tea, he wants tea and whatever else might be on the menu at the restaurant behind the gas station on College and Fifth. Katara doesn’t even consider that it might not still be there until she’s already standing in front of the nondescript door. It sticks but opens, the warmth from inside catching her off-guard.   
It takes her a moment to reorient herself, as if she’s just stepped back in time instead of across the threshold. At first glance, nothing has changed in eight years. There’s a series of small rooms, each with warm wooden table and chairs and welcoming floor cushions jumbled close together. It’s far from empty, despite the late hour, and there’s enough conversation that a comforting murmur fills Katara’s ears. After a few moments Reza steps out of the kitchen to greet her. Reza’s eyes widen in surprise to see Katara, but she doesn’t say anything, barely hesitating before leading Katara back to a tiny table in one of the inner rooms. Katara sits so that her back is to the wall, and smiles tentatively.   
“Do you know what you’d like, dear?” Reza asks, and Katara glances for the menu. Seeing nothing on the table except for the candle, rose water and sugar, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then recites their eight-years-ago-usual order from memory. Reza smiles broadly, nods, and disappears back to the kitchen.  
Katara glances around the room, not nervous exactly, but alert enough. Always alert. The rise and fall of other conversations lap against the table like waves, but this tiny room, which somehow holds four tables and more than a dozen chairs, is peaceful and quiet. And so warm. She self-consciously sheds her scarf and jacket. Katara traces the pattern of the fabric of the tablecloth under the thick clear vinyl cover and lets her mind wander.   
There were so many times she had imagined this very thing. That he would find her. That she would happen upon him in some crowd at a conference or in the airport or walking around whatever city she was in. All the nothing that at some point she had wanted to share. None of it means anything now. For the briefest moment, Katara questions the reasonableness of coming here. But it is too late to turn back now. She has already ordered. Reza has already recognized her, she is sure of it. And so there is nothing to do but wait. 

+++

Zuko has made a mistake coming here. He feels it in his gut. It has been eight years of no mistakes when it comes to Katara, even when he’s desperately, desperately wanted to make them. Zuko tells himself he can chance one mistake. He can. He is already here, and there is no going back. Look, here is Reza at the kitchen door, letting him in, not tentatively but throwing the door open and pulling him in, relieved with every encounter that he has returned. “She is here,” Reza whispers before releasing him, leading him through the maze of kitchens and rooms.   
What has he done? he wonders, hanging his jacket on the hook outside the inner room before stepping around the corner. Agni, she is beautiful in the moment before she realizes she’s looking at him, when the candlelight plays off her auburn hair and she’s lost in thought. Zuko counts his breaths across the room, going as slowly as he can, willing time to stop.


	5. an anchor

Katara does not want to admit she has had more to drink than she is used to. Her mind wanders more than it should and it is difficult to focus. What is she going to do if Zuko gets here, she wonders. Eight years is a long time to wait for someone, and she’s starting to feel put out about waiting these ten minutes more when she can feel his eyes on her. And just like that, Katara is incredibly, frustratingly sober.

Zuko stands at the doorway, caught in mid movement. It takes quite a bit out of her to ground herself in this moment, to believe that he is really here. Katara is slightly less sober than she led herself to believe, and she’s vaguely glad the tea hasn’t come yet when she rattles the table as she stands to greet him. Before she can catch herself his name escapes her lips, and it sounds so strange, like in that single word someone else has said all the ideas she’s been waiting to send out into the world.

Zuko is the same as he has ever been, and different - the line of his jaw sharper. His hair longer, less kept, covering more of the large scar over the left side of his face. There’s a new scar, just under his right ear lobe, so small that she shouldn’t be able to see it, and it’s then that she realizes he’s crossed the room to join her. Almost hesitantly Zuko takes her hand, raising it carefully to kiss her knuckles. “You’ve been smoking!” he cries in surprise, before kissing her hand again, inhaling sharply, for dramatic effect. He laughs softly, a gift he is sharing only with her.

In spite of herself, Katara smiles, comes close to giggling. “Yes,” she admits, somewhere between defiantly and sheepishly. “Yes, outside the bar earlier tonight.” There’s no reason to hide it.

“Outside a bar!” Zuko cries, the smile making his amber eyes light up playfully. “Who is this stranger who has met me tonight?” he muses, gesturing grandly to the chair she has just risen from. “Please, madam, I beg you, tell me everything about yourself.”

They sit. What else is she going to do, really?

“Please don’t be overdramatic Zuko,” she laughs, sitting carefully so that she doesn’t bump the table, noticing too late that the table is too small, feeling his ankles bump against hers as he folds himself into his own chair across from her.But he only smiles. It’s an old line, and now they are back in the middle of a conversation again, and she can almost imagine that no time has passed at all.

“What _are_ you doing here,” Katara asks, just as Reza arrives with the tea. Lentil soup. Falafel and hummus and pita. Almond cookies, still warm from the back oven. A feast. Zuko pauses, gives Reza a heartfelt nod and “thank you.” He busies himself with adding the sugar cubes and rose water to the tea for both of them.

“I believe I’m here to enjoy some tea. Thank you for ordering.” His delivery is the height of sincerity, but his eyes sparkle with mischief. He squeezes the lemon into his soup and begins to eat.

“I meant _here_ ,” and she gestures vaguely around. “At the university today.”

“Oh _that. That,_ my dear stranger, was poetry. That would have been obvious to Katara, what have you done with her?”In response Katara only snorts before taking a sip of tea. After a moment appreciating a falafel he turns the question around to her. “What were _you_ doing there? I thought you were still working on that personal archive in Omashu.”

Katara hadn’t told him. She had stopped leaving breadcrumbs both self-conscious and subconscious a long time ago, but it doesn’t surprise her that he knows.

“I am. It drags on forever. Another month at least. I’m just here for the weekend. Ty Lee’s giving a lecture tomorrow as part of the the Physics department’s contribution to homecoming, and it had been so long since we’d all seen each other…” He nods thoughtfully. “But why are you here?” Katara asks again, gripping her tea cup a little tighter.

“I’m back for a short while.” But it’s unclear if back is back here, in his apartment or in Gaoling, or in the Earth Kingdom. Katara very briefly considers clarifying, but decides it doesn’t matter much, really.

“Were you going to tell me?” Katara asks, not sure she wants to know the answer.

“I had hoped to,” Zuko says softly, almost in a whisper, looking down at her bare hands, imperceptibly reaching towards them before stopping himself.

Zuko is wearing a hideous red and purple paisley shirt, sleeves rolled carefully up almost to his elbows, and Katara is momentarily distracted by it, trying hard not to spend too much time thinking about what exactly is happening here.

“You’re not married,” Zuko says, his voice falling in to a familiar rasp that makes Katara close her eyes with a rush of memory.

“Of course not,” Katara says, dismissively, half of the truth. Katara is a serial monogamist, doomed to a life of content partnerships that eventually just end amicably for no particular reason. What she doesn’t say: “You know _me._ ” What she means to say: “Things are never quite the same.” Instead she says, “You know. I’m a chronic workaholic. Things never quite… work out.” 

Zuko closes his eyes, considering.

“You?” she asks. Just full of questions that she doesn’t want to know the answers to.

But Zuko’s eyes smile at her, the candle catching the amber and lighting it aflame. “No,” he almost laughs. “Can you imagine me asking someone to live this life with me? No. I came close once, but… It wouldn’t have been fair.”And Katara is surprised, shocked really, to realize that she is jealous, before she wonders, only for a moment, if she was the one that came close. It’s a ridiculous thought. They had never. But Katara cannot deny that their partnership had set a standard in her own mind that no other relationship had managed to approach.

“I see your work sometimes,” Katara offers. What she doesn’t say: she watches for it, delighted when she recognizes a line or a couplet, determined to unravel the pseudonym of the piece until she has discovered its riddle.

What is she even doing here? Katara shakes her head and takes several meditative breaths, just like he had taught her, in through her nose, counting to five.

Zuko misreads her head shake, and looks out into the hall, towards the front of the restaurant. Seldem are the situations where he does not know what to do next. Everything about this situation has him off balance. She wasn’t supposed to be here in Gaoling. He shouldn’t have asked to see her. But Katara has always both thrown him off balance and pulled him into balance in turn. Being in her presence again after so long feels so strangely like being home. There are many things he would change about these last years, if he had been better, more deserving, more careful.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says, so quietly that she almost doesn’t hear him. But Katara does hear him, and a sorrow that she didn’t even realize she was carrying threatens to overwhelm her. Instinctively she reaches for his hand across the table, an anchor, and he accepts the gesture, running his thumb over the top of her hand. After so long, the tenderness of the contact leaves Katara breathless. Defiantly, she forces herself to hold his gaze.

Of all the things she could say, only one manages to materialize. “Me too,” she whispers.

Those might be truest words she has ever said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little nod to my favorite Josh Ritter song there at the end (make me down, from Bringing in the Darlings)  
> Thanks for coming along. It's so lovely to be writing again and sharing with you all. <3


	6. improbable mystery

Reza appears beside them, looking apologetic, but they are closing soon. It’s nearly two in the morning. Katara gathers her scarf and jacket. When Reza moves on to the next room of the restaurant, Zuko slips a hundred dollar bill under his tea glass and grabs Katara’s wrist, silently pulling her towards the doorway. He pulls his jacket from the hook in the hall and winks at her before guiding her further into the restaurant’s maze until they get to a tiny room, little more than an alcove, with the emergency exit to the alley.

  
Katara’s eyes widen in surprise. She knows this exit, this alley, and so it is Katara who turns her back to the door and opens it slowly by leaning into it. Outside it’s closer to cold and the juxtaposition to the comforting warmth inside is jarring. The alley looks just the same as it did ten years ago, when he stood in front of her in the summer heat and demanded that she try to punch him. All those nights he painstakingly adjusted her form and trained her breathing, insisting that she learn proper hand to hand combat, usable self defense. The memory hits her harder than the chilly wind.

  
He’s following her closely and they’re still facing each other, the door catching just behind him. For a moment she is caught between her memory and the present, breathless, and she thinks he might make her fight him. He is so close, she can see the new scar again, wonders how it came to him. Wishes she had been there. For a moment, she is caught in the intensity of his gaze, his amber eyes still aflame, full with something she cannot quite place.  
“Will you stay with me,” he asks, and she is caught off guard, not least by his deliberate phrasing of the question. It’s so unlike him. Unlike how he was. What does she know about him now? Practically nothing. But somehow enough. Despite herself, she nods in agreement. This may be all she gets, and she’s not ready for it to end. He mirrors her nod and strides down the alley, trusting she will be close behind.

  
Katara knows this maze but she’s still not expecting the abrupt stop five minutes later when he pauses at a battered door in the brick and enters a key code before slipping into the dark stairwell.

There are a surprising number of stairs and Katara is both grateful and annoyed when Zuko reaches behind him to grab her wrist again, a silent encouragement. He pauses on the third landing. “Do you remember,” he muses, leaning slightly against the wall, “that week we played cards on the landings of the back stairs to my apartment?”  
Katara laughs despite herself. What she doesn’t say: I don’t need you to make an excuse to rest for me. I run five miles every morning, thank you by the way for instilling terribly long-standing physical fitness habits in me. Instead she pauses next to him, nodding. “Why were we out there? Was that when that elephantrat family was trapped in your apartment?” He only nods, watching her closely. Measuring her breathing. She almost punchs him. Instead she starts up the last flight of stairs.  
The door opens onto the roof, and Katara smiles. The moon is bright above them.

  
“This way,” Zuko breaths behind her, stepping past her and around the corner of the stairwell before setting himself on the ground a little further on. Katara pushs her hands further into her jacket pockets as she wanders over to slide down the wall next to him. She miscalculates and their shoulders bump together roughly. “Sorry,” she mutters softly. To her immense surprise, he responds by sliding his arm behind her back and pulling her closer, tracing small circles on her shoulder before resting his land lightly on her jacket. Katara’s body betrays her as she leans into him, relishing the warmth that he has always radiated. The stars are many above them. The city is vast around them. Their reunion is an improbable mystery to them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with these two, and with me


	7. conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this has been a lot like making pastry dough, everything folding in on itself in crazy layers. I've been so nervous to get to this posting because I keep revising it but I can't put it off any longer. Onward!

“How long will you be here?”   
“’Til Sunday morning. Ty Lee’s lecture is Friday - tomorrow - well, today.”

“Did you know I’d be here?”  
“No, I had no idea. You surprised me today. I very nearly forgot my lines.”

“Your pseudonyms are my favorite puzzles.”   
“High praise.”

“Tell me a story about the stars.”  
“Very well. You know the Hunter. You see his main stars, here, just over that antenna tower. Then. One fine evening the Hunter decided he was in need of something special for dinner, and he set out, across the sky…”

“Did you ever find my article?”  
“You know I did. It was a very clever clue, in retrospect. I imagine you were quite proud of yourself.”  
“I was actually.” 

“Did you know, that afternoon we - when we met in your office?  
“No, not exactly. I. I knew it was possible.”  
“And when you called my office?”  
“Yes. By then I knew I was leaving.” 

“Is that my scarf?”  
“I’m not giving it back, if that’s what you’re asking.”   
“Of course not. It belongs with you.”

“What happened to that project on Ember Island?”   
“Hmm. It was a fascinating archive. Extensive. Then, out of nowhere, three, maybe four months in, one of her other children shows up and offers me twice the money to leave the next day and abandon the project.”  
“Did you?”  
“I’ve very mixed feelings about it. But I did.”

“Did you ever get good at making korokke?”  
“What? Of course! It was only that one time when everything fell apart in the fry oil. You have eaten my korokke, Katara, in case you have forgotten.”  
“I remember. But did you ever get good?”


	8. tenuous threads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saying things you don't mean to when you're half asleep may be a trope, but it's also a real thing that happens to me. Like when I told my husband I was writing and sharing again. Anyhow, thanks for sticking with me! I hope you're having half as much fun reading as I am figuring these two out on the page. Screen? Keyboard? Writing digitally is weird.

“Why didn’t you ever come find me?”

The sky is beginning to lighten, although the sun is still many minutes from peaking above the horizon. Katara has been dozing for sometime now, giving in to the solid warm wall of Zuko beside her. His head rests lightly on hers when she rests against his shoulder. Katara has held the question close since she first heard Zuko’s voice this afternoon. No, longer. Years. Katara is just tired enough that she has already asked before she can think better of it. In all the messages they had exchanged, it had seemed both impossible and imprudent to ask. Katara can feel his fingers absentmindedly weaving her hair. But he doesn’t answer, and the silence stretches out between them, until she is sure he will not answer even here with no danger of anyone overhearing.

“I did. Though.”

Katara can’t look at him, convinced she must have misheard, and instead nestles further into his side. She is more awake than she was when the question escaped her lips, but still asleep enough to intertwine her fingers with his. “You what?” she whispered. 

“I did. Come to find you,” Zuko breathes into her hair, his body rigid beside her.“Many times.” 

“How many times?” each word is slow to leave Katara’s lips, almost tentative.

“Five times,” he offers, daring, _daring_ to gently run his thumb over her hand, exhaling slowly when she doesn’t flinch away. “I knew where you were most of the time, but I went to those places. Five times. I. To see for myself. That you were okay.”

Katara sits up to look at him, her eyes grazing his scar, his lips almost moving in continued speech but frozen after her sudden movement, finally seeking out his eyes in some attempt to gauge the veracity of this. She tries desperately to find some way to respond but can do no better than a meager, “That is so incredibly unfair, when all you left me with were riddles and half truths.” Katara forces herself to breathe slowly, rethinking so many things in these moments. “You must have seen then that I wasn’t, actually, that okay.”

“You were. You have always been imminently capable. You have built yourself a life. I have no right to interrupt. I have. I have no claim on you.”

Katara closes her eyes. She reminds herself she _is_ imminently capable. Independent. Self contained. She was this way before Zuko and thrived with and without him. But it is truer, _much truer_ that she has no claim on Zuko. He is a warm wind that will linger in her hair but never stay.He is a dangerous spark that contains the potential for wildfire. She has never had to work hard to justify the _rightness_ of their separation. And yet.

Despite her silence, Zuko forges ahead, and Katara is struck by the uncertainty that has made its way into his voice. “I _am_ sorry to have left the way I did. But it was not. Katara-“ Her breath catches; it has been so, so many years since he, since anyone, has said her name in this way.She leans forward until their foreheads are resting against each other. It’s an old conversation, this move, and it steadies her. Zuko tries again. “Katara, I could not ask you to risk everything. What kind of partner would that have made me?”

Katara considers this. She knows there is truth in this assessment. They are nothing and everything to each other even now, even after only tenuous threads remain to bind them. Even here, on this rooftop slowly flooding with light, she hesitates to consider that she might be in love with this man. But certainly she had always loved him, loves him still. Zuko became her closest friend over a matter of weeks and has remained so even in his absence. Their separation had always seemed like an integral part of the plan, necessary to ensure his safety as much as hers. But now it seems less crucial.

“An honest one?” she finally offers.

Zuko says nothing to this, shifts so that his brow is no longer holding her head in place, gently kisses her mess of hair, a hum deep in his throat.

+++

They cannot stay here much longer. Katara is meeting the girls for breakfast and she looks, and feels, like she spent the night in last night’s clothes on a roof. There is a very large part of her that is certain that if she is not in his continuous presence, then he will vanish like smoke in the wind.

Carefully, Zuko helps her to her feet and leads her down the stairs. He holds the alley door open for her silently, his splayed fingers barely grazing the small of her back as she passes. He offers his arm as he walks her to her hotel, deep in thought. There are too many things for Katara to ask and none of her thoughts slow enough to be articulated. Zuko pauses at the side entrance to the hotel, and Katara stands silently before him. Their feet are nearly touching. There is a slight but persistent wind and he reaches out to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear. The whisper of his fingertips against her exposed skin. “Zuko,” she whispers, and stops when he searches her eyes for what will come next. She has no idea what will come next. Nothing will come next. She will stand in front of this door in the wind for the rest of her life.

“The lecture is at four,” he says, his eyes still intent on hers. Because of course he knows. “You will want to have dinner together. I will meet you right here at seven.”

Katara nods. She is not ready to leave this spot. He will return at seven and she will be here still. She wants to touch him, to ground herself with him, but she can’t move. “Please don’t disappear,” she finally says, upset at how terribly needy she sounds, how desperate, how tied to him.

His pupils dilate in surprise and his lips curl in the slightest smile. “Only until seven,” he tells her, brushing his lips against her temple before walking away, disappearing around the corner.


	9. only by omission

Ty Lee is not an early riser, and Katara has never been more grateful. She’s not expected for breakfast until 10, so she has at least two hours to nap before she needs to spend some time looking presentable. On her way up to her room she sets an alarm on her watch, briefly worrying it will be hard to fall asleep. It isn’t, and she falls into a dark, dreamless sleep moments after laying over the bedding, still wearing her jacket and shoes. When the alarm jostles her to wakefulness, she has plenty of time to shower and dress, choosing new earrings and a pressed shirt to emphasize that she came back to her hotel _and_ slept in a bed _and_ showered, thank you very much.

She checks her phone. Predictably, there is nothing from Zuko. And equally predictably, a message from Ty Lee that she is running no more than five minutes late.

The restaurant downstairs has a beautiful open patio and big welcoming chairs and benches. Suki is waiting at a table, sipping lemon water and reading a slim volume in the autumn sun. A display of scones is spread out on the table, waiting patiently for her cohorts. Katara is thankful that Suki is too occupied to scrutinize her on the long walk across the hotel lobby and through the restaurant’s enclosed space. “Morning,” she offers cheerfully, choosing a seat across from Suki. “Morning,” Suki answers, finishing her page before first closing her eyes and then thoughtfully closing her book.

Katara chooses a scone and gratefully devours it. Cranberry with orange flower water. It’s delightful.Ty Lee sits beside her soon after, thanking Suki for the scones.They order mimosas and eggs and fall into easy conversation.

Eventually the time seems right to tell them about Zuko. “I ran into Zuko, the poet from yesterday, on the way back last night.” She’s looking at Suki but uses this phrasing for Ty Lee’s benefit. Suki’s eyes go wide and Ty Lee does not miss the look that passes between them.

“What?” Ty Lee asks, “What is that look?” she looks at Suki and then to Katara.

“ _That_ was Zuko?” Suki asks, whistling as she exhales.

Katara nods, giving Suki permission to give context. It will be better from an outside perspective anyway.

“Wow. Okay,” Suki starts, running her fingers through her hair. “Right. So Zuko, the poet, Zuko predates both of _us_ Ty Lee. It must have been, what, first week of grad school, Katara?” Katara nods. It was the third day, actually, that he showed up in her tiny office in the library basement. “And they were thick as thieves after that until he just disappeared one day, no warning, maybe, what, three years later?” Katara nods again, it had been two years and ten months, give or take.

Ty Lee stares at Katara. “But I knew you for parts of that! You never said you were with someone!”

Katara starts to answer but Suki cuts in, “Oh, they weren’t _together_.” So Katara just shrugs. That about covers it. Suki rolls her eyes. “Katara will adamantly deny that they were together. But, Ty Lee, I’d bet good money that Zuko knows Katara a lot better than either of us, and he’s been in the wind for - what would it be now, Katara, eight years?” Katara only nods. Suki says it so kindly, and it’s a fair assessment.

“Wow,” Ty Lee says, taking a sip of her second mimosa. “Wow. So yesterday he just appears out of nowhere?” When Katara nods, Ty Lee leans in conspiratorially. “So, what happened?”

Suki catches herself laughing but it’s too late, the tiny giggle has already escaped. Katara feels her face flushing. “What’s so funny?” she demands.

Suki sombers and kindly reaches over to pat Katara’s hand, “No offense honey, but you’re going to deny that anything happened, regardless.”

Katara considers this. She closes her eyes. Her friends busy themselves with brunch and give her minutes to think over what she will tell them. “We went for tea,” Suki knows the extent of the possibilities this might entail and smiles at Katara, so she continues. “We talked for a long time. He walked me back here and we agreed to meet again tonight at seven.”

Ty Lee is still catching up. “Is that good?” Suki adds, “How do you feel about tonight?”

Katara looks at her friends. They were so good for her. She is so glad to be with them now.

“I feel… I feel excited about seeing him again. And worried that I won’t.” Suki nods knowingly. She and Katara had become fairly good friends by the time Zuko disappeared.

“Did he tell you he’d see you tonight?” Suki asks.

“Yes,” Katara says meekly.

“Then you will,” Suki says firmly. “Zuko may be a lot of things, but he’s never been a liar.”

“Only by omission,” Katara says, softly, but there is a smile in her voice.

“Now about this lecture this afternoon,” Suki begins, winking at Katara before they turn their full attention to Ty Lee.


	10. not a date

The day is beautiful and warm. The lecture goes well because of course it does. There are questions and conversations after, but still plenty of time for Ty Lee, Suki, and Katara to get dinner together at one of their favorite dives from grad school and be back to the hotel before 6:30. Ty Lee and Suki insist on helping Katara get ready, despite Katara’s overtures that this is not a date and she does not need to get dressed up, and she only has four shirts to choose from anyway. It doesn’t matter. They will do their best friend duty and fuss over her.   
And so it is that Katara emerges from the elevator at 6:55 in her single pair of jeans and a low scoop-neck tank on loan from Ty Lee, her favorite jacket, and Zuko’s scarf. She focuses on her breathing, just like he taught her, in through her nose and out through her mouth. It takes hours to cross the hotel lobby to the side entrance. She opens the side door at 6:57.

Zuko is on the sidewalk and makes eye contact before the door has closed behind her. For the briefest moment, Katara wonders what the appropriate etiquette is for greeting someone in this situation. Zuko does not move, so she resumes the approximate position she was in when he turned and left her this morning. For a moment Katara hesitates, unsure what to do next. Zuko has appeared out of nothing. Again. And she is grateful. And so she closes the inches between them and wraps her arms around his neck gratefully, her face buried in his shoulder. Zuko doesn’t seem to hesitate. He pulls Katara in protectively, his hand in the curls of her hair. She is so relieved at the reciprocation that she exhales sharply.   
“You’re here,” Katara says, still tucked into his shoulder.   
“I’m here,” Zuko agrees, his voice muffled by her hair.  
Katara has a hard time getting past this, because despite all the questions from Ty Lee and Suki she really hasn’t thought this through very far. All her anxiety had been focused on this moment and whether or not he would appear. And now that he is very certainly here, she is not sure what to do next.   
“Walk with me,” Zuko says, and she does, grateful for some direction. 

They are silent as they wander. At some point he offers his arm, and she takes it without thinking. Katara notices just before he stops in front of a small cafe nestled neatly into a long row of historic buildings. Zuko opens the door and ushers her inside, leading her to the booth in the back corner. When the waitress comes for their order, he requests coffee - actual coffee - and pie. Katara quirks an eyebrow but does the same, adding a side of hash browns with ketchup.   
“Coffee, huh?” she asks, unwinding the scarf and sliding her jacket down her back. “Who are you?”   
Zuko freezes for a moment before catching the mischief in her eyes. “Sometimes,” he says, “I drink coffee now.”   
Katara props her chin on her hands, feigning fascination, although she is truly interested. “Tell me more about this stranger before me.”   
And Zuko laughs. A wonderful, full laugh. But unlike Katara the night before, he answers, taking his time as he runs through a mental list. “I read my own scientific articles now. It is harder for me to get through an airport. I now favor caramel flavored ice cream. I still can not figure out how to make korokke. I enjoy the rain a great deal more. I miss my Clash records. Do you still have those? I would like those back.”  
Their coffees have appeared and Katara has to swallow quickly before snickering. “You can have those back,” she said, “but you’ll have to find me again. I unfortunately didn’t bring them with me on this trip.”   
Zuko thinks far too seriously about this before nodding slightly. “You’re not expecting to see me around every corner?” he asks, amusement in his voice.  
“Not anymore,” Katara answers, playing along but still truthful.   
Zuko takes a bite of pie, considering this. “And what is new for you?”  
Katara thinks as she devours her hash browns. “I smoke cigarettes on special occasions. I have grown more used to the cold. I have better taste in liquor and clothes, maybe, actually, in most things. I have my own vinyl collection now. And I still make korokke, but not as frequently.” She sits back to enjoy a few sips of coffee. It would be better with brown sugar and for a moment she wonders if it would be rude to ask, before waiving the server down to request some.  
“I think,” Zuko says slowly, “that I would still enjoy your company a great deal.”   
Katara kicks him under the table in her fit of giggles. “Will you though?” she gasps out, until she realizes that it’s a serious question. She clears her throat. Sits up straight. “Seriously though, will you?” 

Zuko becomes very interested in the bottom of his coffee cup, just barely visible through the dark liquid. He hums a little in the back of his throat. The server, as though coordinating with him, arrives with the check, which immediately captures all his attention. It’s not quite true to say he doesn’t know, and so he doesn’t say anything at all.   
Katara finishes her pie and winds his scarf back around her neck. She still can’t settle on what she is hoping for out of this encounter, and is trying very hard not to create any expectations at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well they are awkward turtle ducks but things are starting to come together maybe?
> 
> I'm hoping all of you have happy and healthy thanksgivings. If you're holding out on contact, stay strong. If you're spending time with folks, stay safe. 
> 
> mj


	11. confident and skilled ally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well dear readers, two things:  
> One, there are general and mild depictions of observations of panic attacks here and you know yourself best so do what is right for you. Mental health is health after all.
> 
> Two, "fun" fact: some children are prone to vasovagal syncope which is a terrifying medical term for what is essentially a fainting spell but looks to an untrained-mom-observer like a seizure. Yesterday my six year old fell on his back after frog jumping onto our kitchen counter and only nearly sticking the landing. He had this reaction which sent us to urgent care and then the emergency room before a very kind PA explained the differences. Anyway, all that to say instead of posting last night like a good author I let him stay up late to play cribbage and eat take out sushi. He's fine now, by the way. This morning he made a punny crack about hoping nothing tragic happened today because that would be "death-a-stating" and I nearly choked on my earl gray. No ER visit needed for me though. 
> 
> cheers,  
> mj

Campus is not far and Katara is not surprised when they end up among the historic buildings. It’s nearly dark and the brick and ivy are lovely, illuminated by the old style lamps along the pathway. There aren’t many people walking through campus, but there are enough that it doesn’t feel deserted. Something sparks in Katara’s memory and her eyes light up.

  
“Do you still have the keys to the telescope?” she leans into his arm at the memory of so many late nights huddled together. For one fabulous semester, Zuko had picked up extra work at night for the facilities crew. His second night he discovered a tiny staircase to the roof of one of his assigned buildings, and at the end a misused outbuilding housing the telescope and a wall of astronomy literature. He had called Katara from the campus phone on the cluttered desk, imploring her to join him immediately. It had been two in the morning. It was a miracle that she had answered. She was not disappointed when she stood in the tiny shed twenty minutes later. Zuko had pulled down one of the dusty volumes and read to her before lining up the telescope and pulling Katara to peer through out into eternity. That had been when he had told her about his mother, both her love for story telling through the stars and his great grief at her loss. That was when Katara had caught the gasp in the back of her throat, barely able to whisper “we have that in common.” Katara had accompanied him on many shifts that semester, listening attentively when he told her about the stars, his mother, his family, his predicament. She had sought out the markers in the universe eagerly and had attempted to memorize all she could.  
Zuko laughs, a beautiful deep laugh that pulls Katara from her memory and makes her smile broaden. “That must be a yes!” she teases, and he squeezes her hand against his arm.

  
“If I had known you were coming, I would have figured out a way to borrow them,” Zuko tells her, and she counts his teasing as a victory.  
She is just about to respond when he pulls her into the narrow alley they had just passed, barely a strip of dirt between two red brick buildings. Zuko is so close to her she can feel the heat from his chest against her own bare arms, she can feel his fingers in her hair and for a terrifying and exhilarating moment she is sure he is going to kiss her. One beat passes, and then two, and then she hears the fireworks and her rational thought slams back into her body. She swears silently to herself and reassesses the situation. His body is shielding her from the narrow entrance, his gaze focused out into the night they just slipped out of.

  
“Zuko,” she whispers, reaching out to very gently press her palm along his jaw, just grazing the scar under his eye. “Zuko,” she tries again, ever so softy pulling his gaze back towards her. She presses her other palm into his chest, praying now for grounding as his heart races. There’s no telling what’s happened in the last eight years but before, before no one else spoke Water Tribe to him, and it had always worked to reorient him to her. “Come back to me,” she whispers in her mother tongue. His eyes are beginning to soften and she holds his gaze, although she is sure he does not quite see her. “Zuko,” she whispers again, her thumb pressing lightly against his cheek. “homecoming fireworks. It’s the homecoming fireworks. You are okay. We are okay. In through your nose now,” she whispers, modeling with her own long inhale, an echo of a different time many years ago. She can feel Zuko’s breath on her clavicle, his heart against her palm, and she monitors both as they slow in time with her own deep breaths. In through their noses. Out through their mouths. Katara can tell the moment he returns to her, because his face flushes and he looks away. His fingers are still tangled in her hair and he pulls gently away. When Katara is satisfied she presses her forehead against his and they take one last long breath together. Inhale. Exhale. Zuko’s eyes close.  
Katara is surprised by a strong desire to kiss him. It is ridiculous; she quickly pushes it away. Now is not the time to change the familiar lines of this particular conversation.  
“We’re going to go home” Katara whispers in their common tounge, lacing her fingers in his and very slowly leading him out of this sliver of a space. “You’re going to lead us. I’m going to be right here with you the whole way. Walk me back home, okay?” And he does.

  
It is not very far, but far enough. They are each lost in their own thoughts, but it makes no matter. The walk home is always quiet. A peaceful and necessary liminal space. Katara keeps careful track of his breathing, of their location, but that doesn’t keep her mind from wandering a little too.

They barely knew each other when Zuko happened upon her in the library’s back stairwell, crumpled on the landing, fighting hard within a panic attack. He did not hesitate to drop to the floor before her, his knees solid against her knees. Zuko had whispered gently in a language she had never heard before, and the words braided together into a strong rope she could cling to. Zuko took her clinched fist and pressed it gently to his chest until her fingers splayed under his warm palm, rising and falling with his exaggerated breaths. He whispered foreign kindness that knit around her. Modeled deep breaths in through his nose, gently out through his mouth. They stayed like that, vespers and breaths, in and out, until her breathing slowed and her vision focused on his steady eyes. Eventually he shifted centimeters closer so her brow could rest against his, and she closed her eyes. Deep breath in. “That’s my good girl,” he whispered, falling back in to their common tongue. “Good. We will walk home soon, okay. You will guide us, and I will be with you the whole time. Are you ready?” Katara had nodded slightly against him, opened her eyes. He smiled warmly. “Good. Good. We’re going to walk now. I have you.”  
And he did have her, during the quiet walk to her apartment and after, where she sat on her kitchen counter and watched him silently make her tea. Only then did she notice the span of scar tissue over the left side of his face. Only then did she realize that this confident and skilled ally was the same awkward man with the scar who had visited her basement office earlier that week. After he handed her the mug, he leaned against the counter across from her, watching her carefully. He seemed self-conscious, perhaps about his concern or about the intimacy of their prior contact, and he didn’t seem to want to impose on her space any further. It wasn’t until she sat her empty mug on the counter that he spoke again.  
“Want to talk?”  
She considered. “Another time.”  
He nodded. “Yes.”  
She slid down from the counter. He was already taking the few steps to the door.  
“Thank you,” Katara had said.  
Zuko nodded. “Yes. Of course.” And he had left, the door making a muffled click as he closed it behind him.

They pause outside a new apartment building. Zuko has lightened his grip but does not let go of her hand until they climb the front steps and he takes out his keys. Opens the door. Silently ushers her inside with the familiar grazing of his fingers at the small of her back. Katara calls the elevator, holds it open, waits while Zuko directs it to the top floor, studies the lines of his shoulders until the elevator doors slide open. Katara follows a step behind until he unlocks a door at the end of the hall and hesitates at the threshold.  
“Come,” Katara whispers behind him, taking his arm and guiding him inside. The door closes soundlessly behind them, and Katara slips the locks into place. She finds the kitchen. The layout is new but Zuko’s strong affinity for order and predictability serves her well and she easily makes them tea, gathers them snacks.


	12. why wouldn't they dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're headed into the home stretch here because finally some things are happening for these awkward turtleducks. I rejoice for them because honestly either of them could really use a clear win at this point in their lives. :P

Katara finds Zuko on his balcony, leaning over the glass railing. The balcony is overrun with the green of vines and leaves and and blades of tall grasses and she steps gratefully into this jungle. The small lamps scattered among the green give the space a comforting glow. She sets the baking tray of provisions on a side table before leaning with her back against the glass beside him, waiting.

  
They stay in comfortable silence a long time. Their left biceps brush against each other occasionally, Zuko looking out into the night, Katara studying the view of his small apartment from this unlikely oasis. It is tidy, sparse. The echo of apartments past. There is music playing softy and for a while she attempts to locate where the speaker is nestled into the foliage.

  
While she is waiting, Katara lets her thoughts wonder. Suki had been right this morning, she and Zuko had never been together. Katara certainly hadn’t been waiting for him all these years. Had she wanted Zuko to kiss her between the sun-warmed bricks? It was true that Zuko had never been far from her thoughts. Once, she had gone nearly a month without wondering if he was still out there, where he might be. They were close, before and maybe still. Katara is not embarrased that they have fallen back into sharing space so fluidly, the easy physicality they had always had, as if no time had passed at all. Katara does not know if she wants an explanation beyond his quiet apology the night before. She cannot decide if she would take an opportunity to rage at him before finally closing the door on their partnership. If he asked her to stay with him, or go with him, or meet him anywhere, would she? It is mostly true to say she does not know.

  
Katara turns to watch him, leaning into his shoulder. She’s on his left side and she notes and appreciates the vulnerability that he’s showing by allowing her to remain here. Katara hadn’t even thought of it when she chose this space. She can tell he is turning over words in his mind like rocks he’s collected on a long walk home. Finally, finally, Zuko catches her eye and smiles. He’s arrived at a conclusion. It is the look he would give her when he worked out a line in a poem, or finished a particularly taxing paragraph in an essay. Like a weight had transformed into balloons and just floated away. “Dance with me,” Zuko not-quite-asks, offering his hand as he pushs away from the balcony’s edge. The music is lovely, the night cool but not cold, and they are together. Why wouldn’t they dance?

  
The space is small but he guides her expertly and confidently, one hand warm at the small of her back, the other holding her hand at his chest. The song slows and Katara rests her head on his shoulder. He smells like cedar and cardamon and late nights that turn into early mornings and the freedom to be her truest self. A new song begins and she straightens so they can move faster. He releases her back and spins her around. Her borrowed shirt lifts with her twirl and when he guides her back to him, his flat palm is against the bare skin of her hip. Her breath catches somewhere in her chest, where her heart has forgotten how to function. They have touched, frequently and casually, but the electricity of this contact is unexpectedly different. Zuko’s eyes betray his own surprise, but when she does not pull away, he pulls her closer to him, sliding his palm slowly around her waist until his fingers are splayed against the small of her back beneath her shirt.

  
Zuko watches her carefully. She can tell he is trying to control his breathing, and Katara wonders at this, worries for a breath that he will pull away. His golden eyes are full of concern and something else she can’t quite place. “Is this okay?” he whispers. Not trusting herself to speak, she only nods.

  
Katara’s own palm is across his bicep, and her fingers inch under the sleeve of his shirt tentatively. Katara surprises herself when she decides she does want to kiss him. But more than that. She wants to run her hands over his bare chest. Wants to taste where his skin is stretched tight over his clavicle. Wants to feel his fingers in her hair, not lightly and absentmindedly weaving her tresses but tangling at the nape of her neck. Before she can second guess she pulls him closer to her, her lips pressing gently against his mouth, waiting, hoping for some reciprocation. Zuko’s hand slides farther up her back, the pads of his fingers pressing harder against her. His other hand holds the nape of her neck before he deepens the kiss.

+++

Katara's back is smooth and slightly cool under Zuko’s fingers and he can feel the effort of her breathing. He’s trying to record every part of this moment in his memory, and her fingers tracing circles on his shoulder are a maddening, delightful distraction. Katara smells like moss and vanilla and the air before a rain storm and he is certain he could subsist on just this for the rest of whatever life he has left.

  
Even as Zuko kisses her he wonders if it was the right thing, his pathetic attempts at protection, keeping her far from him all these years, worries how he can resist asking her to stay with him after this, reminds himself she knows all of his most broken parts so well. Katara knows that he will not be able to protect her. Zuko has created an impossible problem, but it’s too late now, and these moments are stretching on forever and perhaps he won’t even have to face the reality of what comes next.  
But he does, because Katara pulls away and studies him carefully. Zuko tries to fill his expression with all the things he cannot articulate well but it does not work, or it works too well, because she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Zuko presses his brow against hers and steadies his own breathing, grounding himself here. He can not plan how to move forward, but somehow he must. “Katara, there are some things I need to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow? What is normal life anymore anyway? I hope you all have a great week ahead of you.


	13. a bit of trouble

Saturday morning is drizzly and cool. The hotel restaurant almost feels cozy. Katara spots Suki and Ty Lee against the back wall; Ty Lee waives enthusiastically just in case Katara hasn’t seen them. The extra mug of coffee is still warm, a small ramekin of brown sugar already waiting patiently for Katara to join them. Katara hugs her friends over the table and sits, cradling the mug in her palms gratefully.

“Tell us _everything,”_ Ty Lee implores, settling in for what she clearly thinks will be a good story.

Suki leans over the table conspiratorially. “Let me guess, nothing happened.”

“Hmmmm, some things happened,” Katara says, taking a long drink of her coffee and ignoring their cascade of questions as she gathers her thoughts.

“I think,” Katara tells her friends earnestly, stirring the brown sugar in slowly, “I made a mistake.”

Ty Lee and Suki both look a little scandalized before pressing her for more details.

“Lots of mistakes, really. I should have gone to therapy sooner,” at this Ty Lee nods seriously. Everyone should go to therapy, and most sooner than they bring themselves to do so. She starts every lecture with this public service announcement. 

“I should have been more honest with myself about the effect Zuko’s leaving had on me,” it’s Suki’s turn to nod seriously. She was there and has been there since. Katara almost never talks about him, but it doesn’t mean that he’s far from her thoughts.

“I should have asked outright to see him,” Katara adds to herself. “Why don’t we ever _talk_ about the things that matter?”

“Just tell us what happened,” Suki encourages.

“Right. Well a lot of things happened actually, but at the end of them, we went back to Zuko’s apartment. We danced on his patio. I kissed him. He told me about the last eight years. AndI think I’m in a bit of trouble“

Ty Lee can’t help herself. “You kissed him?!” she squeals.

Under her breath Suki whispers, “Finally,” just loud enough that Ty Lee and Katara can hear.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Katara huffs.

“Honey,” Suki sighs, “You once told me you were more comfortable with physical intimacy with Zuko than any person you were _actually_ sleeping with. That might have confused you, but my money was on that you just needed to kiss the poor man and see where it led you.”

Katara considers arguing this but there’s nothing to say. She had said that, wondered that herself, and so now she purses her lips and considers Suki’s words. Zuko and she were never _together_. But they were inseparably together for such a long time. He had always been the best kind of friend - pushing her to be more, while seeking out what she was; there to challenge her decisions while never questioning her ability to handle things on her own. They had shared space and thoughts intimately and almost unthinkingly but never carelessly. Maybe all of that was why she had never allowed herself to think very seriously about trying to push what they had into a messy boundary.

Suki, La bless her, gives her a moment before asking, “What _has_ he been doing the last eight years?”

Katara sighs. “Moving a lot, trying to stay one step ahead, away from his family and others who would harm him. Positioning himself to do the most good. Traveling through his country and serving where he can. Raising money elsewhere. Writing.”

“And why are you in trouble?” Suki asks, her eyes warm and hopeful.

Katara struggles to answer this. What she is afraid to say: She cannot be a worthy partner to him. What she brings herself to say: “So much could have happened - did happen - to him. What if I never saw him again and never even knew…” She stops herself before her voice cracks.

Ty Lee and Suki consider this. “What are you going to do?” Suki asks, because of course this is the question Katara is leading herself towards.

Katara studies the wallpaper just above Suki’s right shoulder and takes a deep breath. “I’m going to think. And I’m going to see him again tonight. To say goodbye, I guess.”

Suki frowns at this. “Talk to him,” she urges, “give yourself a chance.” Katara nods and sips her coffee. She is having a hard time grasping what giving herself a chance in this situation would actually mean.


	14. ripples in water redux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've spent so much time on these final chapters, fine tuning and getting lost in their possibility. I expanded the chapter total to reflect what I have so far but there's another one maybe taking form so we'll see if it comes together.   
> I really love this one in particular and I hope you do too. Thanks for reading.

Katara prefers to do her thinking near the water, and the drizzling skies are happy to provide plenty of moisture to any setting within the city. Even with the rain, Katara wanders onto campus, through newer concrete structures on the outskirts, into the ivy and brick heart of campus. There is a pond tucked behind the old cluster of humanities buildings, and she finds herself standing before it before she realizes this is where she had been heading. There’s something of a patio on the eastern building, and Katara climbs up the railing to sit against one of the columns, looking out across the water. Watching the rain make ripples in the water. Watching the turtleducks wander around aimlessly. Letting her mind wander into its own stories and then steadying her breathing. Vespers and breaths.

At one time, Zuko had an office in the eastern building overlooking the pond. Unlike his meticulous apartment, the office was a tumble of paper and ink, books open on tables and covering the old radiator and pages torn from magazines pinned to the beige walls. It was an anomaly that Katara took great pleasure in. Although she had never articulated it, the whirlwind of his office gave her a great, misplaced hope that Zuko was settling. That he would stay. That he felt safe. It wasn’t just that he wrote there, because he wrote in his apartment plenty. There were many nights when they had sat together in his living room, The Clash on the turntable, her legs draped over his lap on the couch, his pencil a makeshift drum stick, testing the turns of phrase as they bounced rhymes back and forth. But writing reigned in his top-floor office, and it was a benevolent and omnipresent ruler.When classes dismissed that last spring, there were no eager students to jostle in the doorway or gingerly displace piles. By the time Katara visited for the last time to somehow preserve this shrine to the written word, it was a holy sanctuary.

Katara used to leave him cut out paragraphs, scotch taped to the wall between other papers, a certain phrasing highlighted for emphasis. It was a bit of a game, to see how long it took him to find her last offering. She had finished her masters nearly a year before but had stayed on working at the university’s library. That semester she’d been spending less time at the apartment writing with him and more time traveling to different archives and buried in her own basement office, researching and writing for the university and for an increasing flow of private clients. Just before the fall semester she would be leaving for a two week stint at a large museum. Things were starting to come together for whatever her future might hold.

And so she found herself one muggy Saturday afternoon, looking out of his office window to the pond, taping a tiny paragraph next to the window between a political speech and some scribbles of his own. She couldn’t resist reading them, his handwriting hurried and crossed out in places. It wasn’t bad, but she could tell it was still only half formed. There was something inconsistent with the last stanza and she chewed her bottom lip. When she had untangled the riddle of it, she pulled her pencil from her hair and very carefully crossed through the third from the last line and scribbled a few words.

Katara was so intent that she hadn’t heard Zuko unlock his office door and slip inside. Hadn’t seen his wary smile, or caught the catch in his breath when her hair fell free of the pencil, when the pencil sliced through his words. Hadn’t noticed his confident strides closing the space between them.

Katara did feel his breath on her bare shoulder, felt her own body tense and prepare itself to spin and strike her unknown assailant. Katara felt the release of her body’s preparations seconds later as she recognized Zuko’s low voice. “You’re lucky I found you. I hear he’s very particular about his work.”

Katara gasped as she turned, feeling emboldened by his teasing, a smile creeping across her lips. Zuko wasn’t really upset if he was teasing her. “Yes, lucky me.”

Although she was facing him now, Zuko stepped closer so he could read over her shoulder. Katara breathed deeply, in through her nose for a full five counts. Zuko smelled like cedar. He was only just barely not touching her. It had been many days since she’d seen him and much longer since they had shared space so closely. Katara had missed him. Zuko hummed deep in his throat as he read. It was a delicious sound, and Katara wanted to hold it against her own tongue. Katara knew it meant he was thinking. Was ready to write. “Looks like I’m the lucky one,” he said, taking the paper from the wall. “You’re absolutely right here. And the next line should follow…. “ Zuko took the pencil from Katara’s hand as he turned towards the cluttered desk and crossed out the remainder of the stanza before rewriting the lines. Katara looked over his shoulder, nodding for a moment. When they wrote together like this, her body sang electric, and no matter how long it had been, every part of her being awoke and became responsive to the task at hand. Their partnership was confident, easy, unthinking. When he had finished she read it over again, taking the pencil and making a few more changes, handing the pencil back to him automatically. She nodded. It was good. He would easily find a publisher. Zuko turned and had smiled at her, a proud, satisfied smile, and for some reason she had always thought that he was proud of _her,_ although really that made very little sense when she considered it later. He had reached over her shoulder to tape it back to its space on the wall, his fingers brushing her shoulder on their way back to his side. “Let’s celebrate,” he had said. She had smiled. She had smiled not knowing that would be their last time together for a long, long time. 

+++

Zuko did not become tied to spaces, but he felt the strings of the pond pull at him.It was one of his favored places those years he was at the university. The turtleducks reminded him of his mother, of a time before running and writing and being as afraid of being alone as he was of trapping someone with him. When he’d been offered that office with the window overlooking the pond, he hastily accepted and moved in the same day. He and Katara had spent many hours next to the pond, watching the turtleducks. It was a good place to think over his current situation, even if it was haunted now by all that had been.

Zuko saw Katara across the water even before he came to the end of the building on the western edge of the pond and he hesitated in the shadows there. He had expected the haunting to be less literal.

The poem he had recited Thursday afternoon had been taped to his wall for more than three months. He’d moved its location many times, and finally settled on the space by the window where he would be forced to look at it every time he stole a glance at the pond below. It was a stubborn poem that could not wrap itself up satisfactorily. He’d very nearly given up on it. He knew it needed Katara but he couldn’t bring himself to ask her. She’d been so busy with her own work and he felt selfish for each moment he had taken from her.

Zuko had gone to his office that Saturday for something else. He’d just received a message from Uncle, something ominous but not quite immediate. Some low level informant had pieced together where he might be, although he hadn’t reported it to Zuko’s father yet. Zuko had been concerned that he would have to leave this place soon, and wanted to try to bring the unruly office to something close to order. Zuko knew it would fall to Katara to archive his space, and he was already feeling guilty about the burdens he was laying over her.

Zuko had not been expecting to see Katara there. Had not expected the catch of his breath as her hair cascaded down her back. It had been weeks since they had spent real time together. He had missed her, his friend. His writing partner. His companion. Zuko was very good at writing words. But he did not flatter himself by thinking he could articulate anything meaningful in real time. He could barely articulate the feelings coursing through his veins as vague thoughts. Zuko’s concern over the afternoon’s message evaporated as he watched her, joined her, felt the easy flow of their working together. The _you’ll miss this more than any other thing_ only a whisper that pulled at the edges of his consciousness.

Later, when they left the eastern building on their way to a celebratory dinner, Zuko had stopped her next to the pond, his fingertips just brushing against her wrist. The setting sun had kissed the earth with a delicate golden light, and everything in that moment was worth returning to later. What he wanted to say: If I am not alone in this love, please come with me, marry me tonight and come with me. What he should have said: Something’s happened and I don’t want to leave you. He settled on, “thank you,” and immediately felt ridiculous. Zuko had wished in that moment that Katara could inhabit his truest thoughts the way she did when they were composing together. He had hoped, vaguely, that Katara would realize it was his heart that had returned to her chest when their souls had untangled after the writing. If she did, she did not acknowledge the new sensation and she did not protest. Instead, Katara had flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, just under his scar. “It’s really good,” she had whispered. “It was good to write with you again.” She had held his arm as they walked, leaning into him occasionally, laughing easily and lightly as they talked.

Zuko had felt the lightness of falling before sinking to the very bottom of the ocean.


	15. a silent penance

Zuko stands there between the buildings for a long time. Thinking about what had been and what could have been and what might be before him. But all that he can see before him is Katara, perched on the eastern porch, her eyes closed lightly and her hands occasionally orchestrating, something she does when she is deep in thought and stuck in translating the thoughts to something more corporal.

Zuko never should have messaged her. He should have left well enough alone. Never should have dragged her back into the impossible complications of his life. He is a selfish and unworthy partner. But these last few days have emboldened him, made him think that perhaps a partnership could be possible again. Zuko knows he is a fool for even entertaining these thoughts. For standing here in this space. For watching her with this tenderness.

+++

Katara feels his nearness before she sees him. Its an old sensation that is waking up somewhere in the depths of her memory. It takes her several moments to place it, to connect the sense memory to its source. Katara knows Zuko is there and she takes a deep breath, chooses to wait in the arms of this building where so much had happened, trusts that he will step out of the shadows to join her there. It is raining in earnest now, and she waits, his walk across the wet courtyard a silent penance.When he climbs the steps, Katara turns her back on the pond, resting her palms on her knees as they sway into the porch. Zuko reaches her sitting on the banister; they are nearly eye level. She watches him.

The gentle rain has caused Katara’s unruly mane to curl wildly and Zuko reaches out to smooth a wayward curl before catching himself. His hand hovers uncertainly by her shoulder. Katara knows his hesitation; she will drown in it before she takes her next breath.

“I should have done a lot of things differently,” he finally says, praying silently that somehow his jumbled thoughts translate to a language she can understand.

“Please stop apologizing,” Katara says, even as the apology gives her hope, sets her afloat in the midst of her drowning.

“What should I do instead?” Zuko asks, sounding as unmoored as Katara feels.

What she wants to say is: Set my skin on fire and let me be your partner. What she thinks she will say is: Tell me what we’re doing here. But what escapes her lips is something more: “Tell me what we’re doing here. Because I thought I came to say goodbye. But I won’t.” She is suddenly defiant, emboldened by something she cannot name. Zuko’s hand still hovering, maybe, not quite touching her hair. The way he’s looking at her. (Always the way Zuko is looking at her. Has he always looked at her this way?) The water all around her. The uncertainty escaping through the cracks in his voice.

“I won’t either Katara,” Zuko says softly, and he finishes his earlier motion, smoothing her hair before stepping closer to her perch, her knees hitting against his thighs. “I’d really like to kiss you,” he tells her, his thumb skimming lightly across her cheek.

“You may,” Katara says, hooking her left ankle behind his knee. She wants that too, doesn’t she, after everything? But still she pauses, flooded by all the many ramifications that one more kiss could bring. “I still have to go back to Omashu tomorrow.”

Zuko is very close to her now, but he pauses without kissing her, considering this. “In that case,” he says, something pulling at the edges of his smile, “I need your help with something. Come with me.”

Its a question, probably. The answer comes easily. He has already stepped away from her, confident she will follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one, and I'm sorry!  
> But it turns out there was an extra chapter rattling around in my brain and it fits in next. So I'm working as fast as I can to make it all make some kind of sense.   
> These two.   
> Happy Friday everyone.


	16. known to leave well enough alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think I've finally got this chapter to a publishable version. Its a long one. Sorry not sorry?
> 
> Hmmm so many more thoughts at the end if you can bear with me that long.

Zuko had seen her five times:

Ma’inka Island.

Kyoshi Island.

Ba Sing Se.

Ember Island.

Omashu, just two months ago.

Zuko’s work under the umbrella of the Blue Spirt Network resulted in a surprising amount of useful information. Uncle’s loose association with every tea proprietor across the four kingdoms was its own network to be reckoned with. News flowed through many channels to inform him that Katara had moved on or was going to move on or that she was being offered a position or had just declined some offer. Most of the time, he only carried the knowledge of her whereabouts like a secret in his pocket, or like a tisane from Uncle’s top shelf at the teahouse. Most of the time, he was too far away, or too busy trying to undo something his sister had set into motion, or too far embedded in whatever situation he found himself in to do much with the knowledge. Wherever he was, Zuko always slept better the first night he had received news. It meant Katara was starting another adventure. It meant she was still safe. Happy even. Proof she was better off.

Zuko never knew if his sister or his father had made a connection between himself and Katara. He had tried to be careful in an official sense. But in an unofficial sense, he had spent every moment he felt he could justify with her for nearly three years. He had crouched beside her in a stairwell one day and the next couldn’t untangle her from his thoughts. It was the most reckless thing he had ever done, and that was really saying something. Zuko and Katara had woven words and plans and eventualities together. He had told her about his mother, and enough about the rest of his family, and had broken open his works for her to rebuild with grace and efficiency. But Zuko could not ask her to walk away from all she had built for herself or all that she wanted. And he couldn’t ask Katara to face his family or their supporters, or to put herself purposefully in danger. Most of all, Zuko couldn’t ask her to return his longing for something more than the already wondrous partnership they had found themself in. And so Zuko said much less than he could have. Much less than he had wanted to.

It was bearable, the leaving, the being apart, for a while. It had been almost two years before Zuko saw her in the market on Ma’inka Island. The last he had heard Katara had been in the Earth Kingdom working for a string of private clients. Zuko had frozen in the middle of the busy street for at least a minute before slipping his hood up and stepping into the shadows of a random stall, working to steady his breath. Katara had been holding a mango, laughing at something the child working the fruit booth had said. Agni, she was beautiful.

He had been staying with a family of farmers inland and quickly purchased the remaining supplies they had needed, keeping tabs on her movement through the market as he slipped from stall to stall. That afternoon, Zuko had tried to focus on the people he was here to help. Tried to think about the day he would be able to do more for the humblest in his homeland. He and Uncle were close to a tipping point, surely, now that his father was incarcerated and his sister was getting the help that she had needed for so long. But not yet. Like with everything, it seemed, he was only biding his time.And even as he tried to refocus, his thoughts always returned to Katara, to the light in her smile, to the joy she spread like perfume behind her through the market, to her stubborn resolve to help where she is needed. It turned out she had been in town for weeks. He would have to leave the next morning. It was just as well.

Zuko knew she’d been signing up for messaging services. He’d clocked her on four so far. That night in a stable on Ma’inka Island he finally gave in and sent her a message.

 ~~I’m sorry~~ it’s been a long time. ~~You are always on my mind.~~

Thank you for delivering my archives.

Don’t think I didn’t notice you kept my vinyl.

~~I saw you today.~~

~~I saw you today and it made me feel like my blood was built from crackling lights~~

How are you?

~~With all my affection~~

~~Your partner~~

~~Yours~~

\- z

He made a better effort after that to keep track of her. Just to be sure. Sure that she was safe. Sure that he was farther away from wherever she happened to be. He could not trust himself to have a conversation with her that would not end in his undoing.

The other encounters were intentional. Zuko had known where Katara was and he was near enough that he could justify going there purposefully. Sometimes she had been with someone, allowing them to lead her through a crowd or sharing lunch with them on a cafe patio. But more often she was on her own, just getting aquatinted with a city and all the dangers it might entail. Zuko spent a day or two in each place checking in with his connections and watching for the lasting vestiges of his father’s supporters. Zuko had spotted a Dai Li agent in her vicinity only once, on Ember Island, and they didn’t follow her after her hasty departure. Still, he continued to make conversation with someone if he was in town - a neighbor in Katara’s building, a newspaper boy, the server in her neighborhood’s tea shop - leaving instructions to contact him if something were to happen to her. If she were to move on.

++++

I saw one of ~~our~~ your poems in The Kyoshi Monthly.

Your reference to the unagi in the pseudonym ~~reminded me of your promise to bring me here thatafternoon we finished and it~~ made me smile.

~~I miss writing with you.~~

~~I miss you~~

I hope you are well.

k

Zuko remembered the balmy afternoon they had finished that poem. The summer sun flooding his apartment though the open windows. The warm breeze playing with her hair while she stood at his kitchen counter, watching him cook Komodo chicken for them. Zuko had let himself make plans that day. The memory, like so many that he carried then, was bittersweet.

Well enough.

~~I saw you last week and you took my breath away.~~

Work is keeping me busy as always.

~~I remember that day we finished~~

~~I miss writing with you.~~

I’m sure you continue to be a force for good.

~~I’m glad you made it to Kyoshi Island without me.~~

z

++++

Katara had spent a semester at Northern Water University, long enough to meet some bloke who fancied her enough to follow her to Ba Sing Se. She had been in the City for more than five weeks when she wandered into Iroh’s tea shop in the upper ring. By then Zuko had already befriended the facilitates team assigned to the Ba Sing Se University Library, ensured all the window locks in her apartment were working, asked her doorman to call him if anything seemed off, and tried his damndest to forget she was in the City. On her third day he had spotted her walking to work on the Water Tribe boy’s arm, her eyes sparkling with laughter. And he had known to leave well enough alone.

It was a Tuesday. Zuko was back in the city, buried in paperwork, tucked into a corner of Iroh’s tea shop. It was familiar at least, being surrounded by paper, even if the stacks of journals were ledgers from the shop and the final stages of a grant proposal to fund a network of wells in the eastern Earth Kingdom. Zuko had no idea how long she’d been there before he startled at the unexpected sound of her voice rising over the din of the crowded shop.

“Excuse me!”

Zuko had sunk a little deeper into the booth and peaked over his laptop screen, pulling his hoodie over his face.

“Yes, miss, is there a problem?”

Katara had been staring into her tea cup, as if she was trying to decide if there was a problem. Her table was a mess of journals and periodicals and papers.

“Where does this tea come from?” she had asked slowly.

Iroh had been walking by with a stack of empty cups and graciously took over for the bewildered server.Iroh had motioned for her cup before inhaling its aroma slowly.

“Ah yes, its very good, is it not? One of my own special blends actually. It comes from right here miss.”

Katara had frowned to herself. Zuko sunk deeper into the booth’s shadows.

“It is, very good. I thought I had. Well. It reminds me of tea I used to drink in Gaoling.”

Iroh nodded slowly. “Ah. Memory is a fickle companion. I am sorry to say I have never sold my tea in Gaoling.”

Katara looked at him carefully, her blue eyes guarded. “I see. I must have been mistaken. It’s very good tea. Thank you.”

Iroh had nodded politely before continuing his journey to the kitchen, giving Zuko a pointed look as he passed the back corner.

Zuko had tried to concentrate on his own work. There was no way he could leave the booth without the chance of her noticing him, and he didn’t like the idea of just watching her for hours ata time. He wasn’t a stalker. He just checked on her every year or so to make sure she was okay. There was a difference and he wanted to keep it that way.

Still, it was hard not to steal a glance every once in a while. It was comforting to see that she was still Katara, still forgetting if she had set her pencil on the table or the windowsill or her tea saucer that had been carried away by the busboy. Still tangling it in her hair when she was thinking. Still loosing herself in whatever she was reading. Still smiling and making kind conversation with the server when they brought her a fresh pot of tea.

The stack of periodicals was getting smaller, and after she ordered a late lunch she pushed them aside and pulled out the Middle Ring Weekly. Zuko only noticed because one of the servers had caught his eye when they walked past to bring her a new pot of tea. She had smiled her thanks at the server but hadn’t taken her eyes off the newsprint. Katara had stared at the page before closing her eyes. He counted her inhale, five long seconds. Agni, she would be the death of him.

Katara had pulled a page from the rest of the newspaper and folded it deliberately before smoothing it into the table with both hands. She had rummaged in her satchel before pulling out a pen. Zuko knew then what she had found. Six weeks ago he had submitted a single stanza to the Weekly. At the time he had thought the lines about the colonies would be too political to get printed. As a statement to the editor of the Middle Ring Weekly it was serviceable; as literature it was pretty shit, honestly. Gods, did she know it was his, or did she just take it upon herself to fix every poem she found in print?

Even in his embarrassment and shame he could not look away from her. Katara was her most beautiful when she was composing. Zuko barely resisted the tug to be near her, to weave something with her again.Many minutes later, when she had sighed, satisfied, stretching her arms high above her head and arching her back, Zuko exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He recommitted himself to the shadow of his booth, to the numbers of Uncle’s ledger. Zuko tried not to imagine what they would have said to each other if he had been sitting across from her table like a normal person.

The sun was low in the afternoon sky when Uncle stopped at the booth, sliding a folded square of newsprint across the table to Zuko. When Zuko looked at him for answers, Iroh only quirked his eyebrow up with his own silent questions. Zuko took the newsprint. The letter “Z” had been doodled and embellished across the fold.

“How long ago did she leave?” Zuko asked quietly.

“Just now nephew. Maybe two minutes ago.”

Zuko had nodded silently before slipping the newsprint in his pocket and hurrying out the door.

For the minutes it took him to catch up to Katara, Zuko really believed he would talk to her. If she knew that he was somehow connected to the tea shop maybe it would only be a matter of time before they spoke. Maybe it would be better to just make himself known now. But when he finally saw Katara, barely an arms length from him, his breath catching at the sight of her, Zuko lost all his nerve. She had moved on. She had a life and plans and hopes of her own. Zuko was still just himself. He couldn’t say why he continued to follow her, risking being seen. He told himself it was because of the falling twilight and the distance back to her apartment, the crowded streets that could be full of danger. But it was truer, much truer, that Katara still carried his heart in her heart.Zuko had followed her too closely, he knew he had. She had only seen him for an instant, glancing over the shoulder of her doorman as she greeted him, Zuko’s unscarred side facing her as he turned the corner and disappeared into the crowd.

++++

So much happened today.

~~I thought I drank your tea~~

~~I thought I felt you~~

I thought I saw you.

 ~~Ba Sing Se~~ This city is so ~~lonely~~ big.

I guess it only makes sense your doppelgänger would be here.

~~I had hoped it was you.~~

I wrote something ~~for you~~ today.

~~I hope you like it.~~

~~I hope you find me soon~~

I hope you are well.

k

++++

Much later that night, Zuko had unfolded the newsprint. She had taken his words and reordered them masterfully. In strong ink strokes, she had crossed out all but four of the lines in his stanza. In the margins she had used them to compose a perfect and compelling villanelle, and just below it had written “the colonies” in a different script, and dated it just under a year from then, the start of next fall’s semester. Her next assignment.

He knew he couldn’t meet her there. Knew he couldn’t message her back that night. Although he wanted to. With his whole heart he had wanted to.But she already carried his heart with her, and if he had to take it back, he was sure it would shatter. Katara was already whatever a moon has ever meant, and whatever a sun will always sing. And Zuko knew, told himself with certainty, he wasn’t enough for her.

++++

There had been many more messages since then, but it was the lines from Ba Sing Se that Zuko thought of after Katara disappeared into the crowd on Gaoling campus. When he gathered his courage to ask her to tea.When he told himself that maybe he had finally become something that could be enough.

Now Katara is here, walking with him from the turtleneck pond again. Zuko closes his eyes, feeling her fingers brush against his as they walk through the drizzling rain. For the first time in a long time, he dares to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew. So this was a stretch for me and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But the little Zuko in my head kept nagging at me so I kept pushing on. 
> 
> I have such a clear picture in my mind of heartsick Zuko in a bale of hay on Ma’inka Island, looking at the summer stars through holes in the barn roof, listing to tiny desk concerts on his phone, writing and re-writing four lines to Katara and humming absentmindedly to Harry Styles's "adore you" or the avett brothers "laundry room" and wondering what he's doing with his life.
> 
> I listened to a lot of snow patrol while writing so bonus points if you caught the crossed out lyric from life on earth.
> 
> Double bonus points for catching e e cummings "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in"  
> I memorized it ten years ago and I love it still and I'd like to think it exists somehow in this AU and that Zuko would have run across it.
> 
> Finally, I want to plug Martin Espada's amazing villanelle "The Prisoners of Saint Lawrence." It was the first villanelle I ever heard and it remains my favorite. You can read it in his lovely book "Alabanza" or imbedded in this Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2004/09/12/martin-espada-believes-that/31550888-7eb3-4993-929e-ed6ee254cb76/


	17. a particular high

The walk is quiet, but the space between them is electric. The rain has slowed to a drizzle again. It pools in little orbs on the fringe of Zuko’s hair. Katara can feel it in her own. Their knuckles brush against each other in the swing of their gaits.

Zuko’s apartment is flooded with hazy light and Katara stands awkwardly in the entry space while he hangs up their wet jackets, fills the electric kettle for tea. “This way,” he says, starting the turntable as he walks past it to the large drafting table in what was probably supposed to be the living room. One of the walls is floor to ceiling windows. The other wall is covered in sketches, print outs, pages torn from their publications, hand written notes. She recognizes some of it. Her last offering to his office by the pond hangs next to the light switch with a thumb tack. The page from the Ba Sing Se Weekly, fold lines impossibly creased, is tacked not far from it. Katara feels her breath catch at the sight of it, torn between needing to smooth her fingers over its edges and being unable to move at all. It takes at least a full minute before she can look away from it. The drafting table is littered with books, journals, stacks of papers, all pushed to the edges. At least half the table is empty, save for this morning’s tea cup and one sheet of kraft paper, covered in ink.

Zuko turns back to her, and she can almost see the tension between eagerness and uncertainty. He closes the space between them, takes her hand. Searches for something in her eyes. Katara can see that the uncertainty is winning out in his. Zuko focuses on her bare shoulder, takes a breath, gathers words. Katara can feel it, the way he gathers words to himself, and then she understands what will happen, what is already happening. It has been eight years and three months since they had written together, and her nerves began to spark to life.

Katara feels his kiss on her shoulder, his lips just brushing her skin, stoking the fire within her gently. As if he can feel the sparks himself, he straightens himself, emboldened, seeking out the strong pull of her blue eyes again.

+++

Zuko wants to tell her that she fills his head with pieces of a poem he can’t get out. He wants to tell her that he stayed up all night trying to write but it is a stubborn poem that has never been swayed by his heartache. He wants to tell her he has spent years trying to get it right and he never has. He’s not sure he can. He wants to tell her he’s a coward and worse. But he can’t get any of those words out either.

+++

“It needs you,” Zuko finally whispers, and his voice is raspy and cracked like a fire taking to kindling.

Katara makes her way to the table. Stands before it. Places her palms flat against the wood on either side of the page. Feels Zuko just behind her, the anxiety that she knows comes before she reads any piece. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, feels the threads of her being reach out and braid themselves to the threads of his. Katara reads the words scrawled across the page. For the first time in this process, she is confused. Sure she has made some mistake. Katara checks her bearings, feels her body and mind alive, feels the tight tug of Zuko nearby.She reads the page again. Feels the great warmth of him behind her, feels her own body sway back just slightly to meet him. She takes a deep breath, five counts, like the good pupil she has always been.

“Zuko.” She whispers.

He hums in response, his lips just above her shoulder, his hand running down her side.

“Zuko. This is a love poem.”

“It is” he says, sweeping her curls to one side, leaving her shoulder and neck bare. A feast before him.

“You don’t write love poems.”

“I do,” he breathes, kissing her neck once. Twice.

+++

Katara smells like an ancient forest on an ocean cliff and he is intoxicated. Writing together has always been a particular high but this is different. The words on that page will never approach the complexity and beauty of what he finds himself beholding. Not even Katara can fix that poem. But Zuko wants to try, wills himself to try before he can agree to give in to the siren song that is this freckle behind her ear. That tender skin that calls to him from the small of her back.

+++

Katara finds it difficult to focus. She reads the page a third time, turns it over in her mind. She has no pencil in her hair, sees nothing to write with on the table. She itches her palm once, thinking, and a pencil appears from behind her, Zuko’s fingers trailing up her arm after delivering their gift. It is so damn hard to remember to breathe. Katara swears she can feel the blood coursing through his veins behind her. She sets to work on the first tangle of the piece. It’s in the first stanza and she whispers the words under her breath. The cadence is all wrong and she turns it over on her tongue before writing and rewriting, before Zuko reaches over her to change a single word she’s scribbfled out. It falls into place and she moves on to the next snarl, his fingers running absentmindedly through her hair.

+++

Zuko watches the dams of his wordsmithing disintegrate before her and marvels anew at this woman before him. It has been hours or days that he’s been standing here beholding her and he begins to grow concerned that this weaving between them will unravel when she has made quick work of his mistakes. He dares to hope that this is something else. Dares to think Katara might feel something for him, that what he feels might be her body responding to him, and not just to his jumbled words before her.

+++

Katara is in the last stanza and its knots are stubborn. She’s orchestrating with her fingers again but she doesn’t notice until Zuko catches her raised hand in his and turns her slowly to face him. Katara blinks at him, surprised to be studying the edges of his scar, the molten of his eyes, the line of his jaw instead of the page. The long shadows now across his face in the fading light.

“Take a break,” Zuko orders softly, his warm palm sliding under the hem of her tank top and pressing insistently against the small of her back, pulling her towards his hips, the flat plane of his chest.

They’ve been writing for an eternity and their thoughts are inextricably entwined. She follows his tug. Allows herself to loose her fingers in his hair and her breath against his lips. The words on the page will have to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well my loves, only a brief epilogue left.  
> Writing and sharing this has been such an amazing experience.   
> Thank you. Thank you.


	18. epilogue: some company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko climbed ten stories worth of balconies to have this conversation and he will be damned if he leaves without saying this one thing.

Katara knows Zuko is there as soon as she slides the lock into place behind her. Her conscious thought can’t pinpoint what has tipped her off. Even though they aren’t writing, her subconscious is already running through the apartment, hoping to braid itself together with whatever part of him he is willing to share. Katara stands there in her own empty foyer for a full minute before she realizes there’s music coming from somewhere in the apartment.

She finds Zuko on her patio. It’s nearly December, but the sun is almost warm and the sky an uncharacteristic clear blue over Omashu. Katara sees the tea steaming on the banister behind him. The comforting scent of jasmine greets her but his familiar and overwhelming scents of cedar and cardamom and wood smoke draw her in. Before Zuko can offer her a cup she runs to him, jumps into his arms. Zuko uses the momentum to lift her from the ground, spins her around. Katara kisses him without thinking, catching his hum in her own throat as he deepens the kiss. She rakes her hands through his silky hair. After an eternity Zuko sets her down on the railing of her patio bannister, still steadying her with his warm hands. Katara knows she will not fall.

+++

Zuko has truly thrown caution to the wind. What would Uncle say? “Zuko, you must find your own path, but better to find your path intertwined with that of a beautiful woman” or something similarly vague. Uncle would be proud of him, Zuko briefly thinks, when he hears the lock turn in the front door.Zuko does not know where he will go next. But for reasons he cannot fully articulate, he trusts that wherever Katara goes will be the right choice. That she will still be the way home. If she will have him.

Will she? Zuko lives lifetimes in the minutes it takes Katara to walk to her patio. Maybe he still had time to leave. But it is too late for that. The songs are already playing. The tea already beside him. He will have to stay. And then Katara is upon him, and he has stopped thinking as her laughter fuels his soul, as her kisses tell him many things that have already been whispered deep within his own being.

+++

“How did you know today was the last day?”

Zuko laughs at that, and his laugh is a summer rainstorm, a clap of thunder Katara was not expecting.

“I guessed. You told me you were wrapping up last week.”

Katara considers this. Sips her jasmine tea from her perch on her own banister. This is not tea she had in her apartment. Most of her apartment is in boxes on a freight ship halfway across the world by now. She smiles, feeling the warmth of the city behind her, the pull of his fiery eyes before her.

“Where did you decide to go next?” Zuko asks. Its the obvious next question but Katara feels a hesitation she doesn’t fully understand.

A week ago she had told him her choices. A university library in Ba Sing Se. A museum on Shuhon Island. A private archive in the Foggy Swamp. Katara’s apartment had been packed for weeks but she couldn’t bring herself to choose. She had finally asked Zuko which would be closest to wherever he would be. The call had disconnected. She had panicked for three full minutes, imagining the worst, before Zuko texted to say that all was well, and he wasn’t sure. She should choose what seemed best for her.

Katara takes a deep breath. It seems silly to talk about tomorrow when Zuko is here right now. “Shuhon Island,” she finally says, “tomorrow night.”

Zuko nods at this. “A good choice,” he offers, sipping his own tea.

“You would say that no matter what I chose,” Katara teases, kicking him slightly. Wrapping her leg around his hip and pulling him towards her.

“Yes, I would,” Zuko says, setting down his tea before gently taking her empty cup and setting it beside her, running his hand through her hair.

Katara knows these things for sure: tomorrow might never come and it is a lifetime away anyway; Zuko is here and his tongue is having its own conversation with her mouth that she feels no duty to translate; the heat of his body is fueling her in a way she cannot explain; his shirt is in the way and there must be something she could do about that; Zuko tastes like jasmine tea and minty gum and the ceremonial fires of her youth.

+++

It takes every ounce of self control Zuko has to pull away from her. The Omashu sunset is in technicolor behind her. Katara’s delicate fingers run themselves over his bare chest, tracing out a poem that he had forgotten. But this has to be done tonight. Zuko will take whatever moments Katara will give him. But it’s truer, much truer, to say that she is the water that he longs to hold in his cracked hands. That he would drown in her if she would stay still long enough. Zuko climbed ten stories worth of balconies to have this conversation and he will be damned if he leaves without saying this one thing.

“Katara,” he whispers, as her eyes come back into focus, as her hands run through his hair. “Katara I —. Would you mind some company?”

“It’s a little late to ask if you can come over tonight Zuko,” Katara says lightly, running her thumb over his jaw.

“No, not tonight.” At that Katara slows, and Zuko uses the last of his resolve to press forward. “I mean, I’m here, and I’d like to stay. With you. But. I meant tomorrow and. After. On Shuhon Island.”

It takes her a long time. Agni what is taking so long. Zuko’s resolve gone now, and he traces kanji over her shoulder, willing a patience to manifest that he does not feel.Of course he has made a mistake. What a fool he is. Never thinking anything through. Zuko looks over her shoulder, thinking of how to get out of this mess. Coming here was one thing, she had been happy to see him, even he could tell that, but asking to tag along, to be _together_ , that was something else entirely. He should have left well enough alone.

“Why would you want to do that?” Katara finally asks, leaning away from him, trying to catch his gaze.

Why would Zuko want to do that. Why indeed. Because his words flounder without her. Because keeping track of her over the last eight years has taken a significant amount of resources. Because the weight of her body against him is more grounding than anything else he has ever experienced. Because Katara is fierce and witty and he has missed her. Gods how he has missed her. Because he will not repeat those years again. Cannot. Because the last month he has been so distracted by the memories of their reunion that the assailant who met him outside the library a week ago had very nearly been successful.

But Zuko can not get any of those words out.

+++

“Why would you want to do that?”Katara asks, her voice barely a whisper. She curses Tui and La and her inability to hope for anything more than what is right in front of her. _He_ is right in front of her, but Katara is beginning to think she’s lost him. She runs her fingers across his jawline, along his clavicle where the skin is tight against his bone. The _come back to me_ unspoken between them.

Katara is thinking she should’t have said anything. She is thinking Zuko will never answer and that they will be stuck in this purgatory of not speaking and not acting until she has to leave for the airport. She is thinking she should have trusted the leap of her heart at his question, should have breathed out any word close to _yes_ and lost herself in whatever part of him he would give her. And now, he will barely look at her, as if he is rethinking everything that has happened between them. Katara catches his gaze and holds it defiantly, desperately trying to communicate anything throughher own eyes, praying that they are not clouded over by her own insecurity.

“Because I love you.” It is only a whisper, but she hears it. Has heard it since she read the poem in his apartment a month ago, since Zuko kissed her shoulder next to the drafting table and she felt his thoughts as if they originated in her own skull. She could not believe then, not fully. She can barely believe it now. 

Gently, so carefully, Katara runs her thumb over the ragged scar over his left cheek.She considers their predicament. She knows it is risky to be together. She doesn’t know the full situation with his family but she remembers enough to know that she is a liability. She is a way to locate him. She is not a worthy partner to him or a worthy adversary to his enemies.

And still, she is hopelessly and steadfastly in love with him.

“Come with me,” she implores, running her fingers through his hair, kissing carefully across his shoulder and up his neck and biting his lip gently before kissing him fully. “Please come with me.” His hands are somehow everywhere at once. Tangled in her hair. Beckoning at her back. Running down her hip and across her leg, still wrapped around him. Before Katara can say anything else, Zuko is lifting her from her perch and carrying her through her empty apartment to the almost empty bedroom.There will be time when they can let themselves makes plans later. But he is here tonight, and tomorrow might never come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! We made it to the end.   
> Thank you so much for following along as I stumbled through this first fic. I continue to be humbled by this amazing community.   
> Special thanks to halfhoursonearth and all of their amazing encouragement. They have a fabulous fic running now (I asked you first) which I highly recommend to all of you.  
> I'm hoping to contribute some to ZKDD so hopefully I'll see some of you amazing readers on those stories as well. Thank you again for your kudos and comments. I appreciate all of you.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, see you again soon.


End file.
